NXT 5-3-17

Itami faces Kona Reeves tonight and there's a battle royal for a women's title shot. Dain faces Danny Burch and destroys him with the One Winged Angel. The Velveteen Dream is hyped up, and HEAVY MACHINERY IS OUT. Otis and Tucker have the best bad names in the company. A wacky double team world's strongest slam ends it. It's super-contrived, but amusing. Kona chats with Roode. DIY is interviewed by a brunette human and man is Ciampa's beard greying.

Reeves is out, followed by Itami in new, shittier black and brown-striped gear. He went from his awesome black and white spraypaint gear to the okay black and yellow stuff to...this. Reeves jumps Itami, but the GTS ends it and Reeves falls like a tree. Itami's left arm looks disgusting now. Hype video for Drew leads to Strong part 2. He and Marina are shown setting up baby stuff. She is shown with a Matt Riddle shirt on.

She opts to half-ass the crib construction for a moment since it's not like the baby will be crawling around immediately. He seems overjoyed to be with her and his mother says that wrestling is part of him. Strong is shown facing AJ in IPW before being shown PRACTICING BUMPS in an ROH shirt. We get shots of him facing Owens, Okada, and Seth in ROH - and this is where showing photos instead of footage works so much better since they're at a higher resolution and put an emphasis on the action. In clip form, you'd just see how rinky-dink it looks. It is surreal to see so much ROH and shots of Okada on a WWE show though. He says he left to avoid just being in opening matches and came in. We see he and Marina with the baby and he tears up.

There is no reason they couldn't just put this on Raw and have him on the main roster. Roode is on his phone before Regal comes in. Roode tells him that he really needs to protect the face of NXT, who produced the most-watched Takeover yet. Roode says that Itami needs to earn a shot, and Regal says that Itami will face Roddy and whoever wins, faces Roode at Takeover. Roddy walks in and they get into a staredown.

Women's battle royal starts out with Lacey Evans for some reason. Billie and Peyton come down, then Nikki, then Liv. God, everyone gets an intro to stretch this thing out. Ruby and Ember are out. CANDICE LA RAE IS IN! Well, her husband works here, so why not. Rachael Ellering is in too. . Rachael went from Ellering to Fazio to Evers. So now she's named for her trainer Lance Storm. Okay. Lots of nothing here Nikki eliminates Liv. Ember hits the Eclipse on Nikki, but Asuka comes down and tosses her out where she gets hurt. Asuka kicks Ruby and sliding kicks Nikki to a huge "Asuka!" chant. Hell of a heel turn here. Regal makes a 4 way for Takeover.